


which of these blessings

by riverbanks



Category: Glee
Genre: F/M, Request Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-20
Updated: 2011-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-20 16:51:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverbanks/pseuds/riverbanks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s always him, always waiting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	which of these blessings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shiphassailed](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=shiphassailed).



> Song prompt meme: _When I Was Drinking_ by Hem.

It’s just the three of them, always just them. They’re not even old enough to drive yet, but Puck finds a way, the way he always does. It’s always him with the truck around Finn’s street, waiting for them.

It’s not a long drive, just until it’s far enough and green enough and there’s no more world around them. They talk football and Star Wars, and she rolls her eyes from the backseat, smiling into her book. They leave the truck offroad and walk the rest of the way. There’s an old pond around old Kelsey’s abandoned house, and that’s where they build their days. Nobody cared when he died, nobody came back to claim his things; so they claimed the pond.

Puck always tries to get them skinny-dipping, Finn always jumps in with his shirt still on. She swims near the bank, the water cold and muddy and filling her hair with grass. Puck swims deep, his head underwater, his feet out in the air. One time, he almost drowns. Finn pulls him back up as she clutches to her cross, praying in small words that never leave her lips, until he’s coughing and cursing before her knees.

Sometimes, it’s just the two of them. She’s scared of the darker waters, but Puck gets bored of swimming alone. He takes her hands and pulls her in deeper, slow and gentle like no one else will ever know. Like he’ll never let anyone know. Her feet leave the ground and she floats in his arm, laughing, a little scared, a little terrified. Happier than she’ll remember for the longest time again. Finn smiles at them from the banks, drumming his hands on his thighs and resting his sprained ankle on the same log where she usually sits to read her novels when they’re playing shark.

They lie on the grass later, trying to fit all three in the towel Puck remembered to bring for her, after she scratched her arms last time. They have one can of beer snatched from the fridge of Puck’s latest job that morning, but she doesn’t drink. Finn and Puck giggle like children, their breath rancid in the air around her, and she smiles and stretches under the sun, closing her eyes and letting the days go by as their last summer together shines one last light before it burns out.

She’s drunk at least half a can the day she kisses Finn under the willow behind old Kelsey’s, and when they come back around the pond, there’s nothing there for them. The beer is gone, the towel is gone, the water is still. They walk back the rest of the way, and when they find the truck again, Puck is sitting quiet by the wheel, staring out into the road and tapping his feet to some old guitar song. Waiting for them. It’s always him, always waiting.

* * *

She feels his footsteps before she can hear them, and doesn’t look up when the old log shifts under his weight. It’s mossy and dark around them, not at all the way she remembers it. Not at all what she hoped to feel coming back here. Everything is just as they left it three years ago, but nothing looks the same.

He picks up small rocks and throws them into the pond like it’s the only thing it’s got left to do in this place anymore, and she frowns as the water barely moves under the weight of Puck’s shots. It looks darker and deeper than before, and for a second she’s not sure she’s ever really been in there before.

Come on, he says, cleaning his pants, the truck’s waiting just off the side; and she half sighs into her hands. He waits for her as she says goodbye to what this place used to mean - to who they used to be. There’s nothing here for them, there never has been.

She feels the grass bend under her feet and he carries her shoes as they walk the rest of the way back. It’s like being drunk and swimming the deep waters she never dared face alone before, but he takes her hand and pulls her slowly under, and it’s the most sober she’s felt in a lifetime as they drive off to where it’s just far enough that the summer won’t catch up with them again.


End file.
